Harry was once more spending all of his time with Hermione and Ron instead of disappearing whenever he had a free chance. It was nice to have their friend back, though Hermione would have certainly liked it more under better circumstances. Just because she didn't like Harry's cousin didn't mean she wanted to see it all fall apart. And somehow it was even worse that the other boy was just horrible and not actually secretly a Death Eater. The latter would have been hard, but they could have handled it the way they handled all of the challenges the wizarding world threw at them. This mundane cruelty was so much worse to deal with.

She hated to think what might have happened if she and Ron hadn't caught up in time. Harry didn't always have the best track record of knowing when to stand up for himself. He'd be the first to jump into the fray to defend someone else, but he had a long track record of just accepting horrible situations as normal when it was just him they were happening to.

And if he had thought his cousin being violent was normal, it made her very worried over how the summer had actually gone. Maybe it had been an improvement from the Durley's but that was setting the bar very very low.

So Hermione wasn't really in the mood to talk to any of them even weeks later. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to have gotten that memo and they all seemed to think she was the one they could reason with. And while Hermione would never say she was anything if not reasonable, in this case, she was fully prepared to be as unreasonable as humanly possible with these people.

"Hermione? Do you have a moment? Can I ask you something?" the other girl interrupted during that week's DA meeting. Sure, Hermione had just finished explaining to Brown how to improve her counterhex timing but that didn't mean that she was free to talk.

"Now's not really a good time," Hermione told her firmly. They were in the middle of lessons – even if it was just DA and not actually class. Everyone had broken up into small groups to practice and Hermione and Harry were supposed to be walking around and offering guidance. This wasn't a social time. No matter how sweetly Sakura might ask.

Hermione probably did spend too much time with the boys in her year and not enough with the other girls, but she knew enough to know when someone was actually friendly versus just trying to act friendly. It was an important life skill living in a girl's dorm and Hermione had little patience for pretending otherwise. From the very beginning Sakura had always seemed to be trying far too hard for someone who was supposed to be pleasant and it grated on Hermione's last nerve. She'd much rather deal with Neville's bumbling or Luna Lovegood's ridiculousness. At least with them she knew what she saw was what she got. Nothing about this nin seemed genuine.

"I know, I'm sorry," Sakura immediately agreed, though she certainly didn't move to leave Hermione alone. "But there's not many opportunities to talk to you."

"Are you having a problem with the spell?" Hermione asked, willfully ignoring the fact that there was no way that was what Sakura actually wanted to talk about and ignoring that no one in Team 7 had managed anything like actual magic. They managed plenty of things that looked like magic, but despite having been here for months, they hadn't made any head way. And it was starting to look like they never would.

But Hermione couldn't very well ban them from DA club just because she didn't like them. Not now that they were an official school club. But that didn't mean she had to play nice either.

Sakura's face scrunched up in a perfect smile as if they talked about school work together all of the time. "It's fine, thank you, we're managing as we always do," she answered. "I wanted to talk to you about your suggestions on how Sasuke could improve his work. You had some very set ideas on what it should look like and we would like to make every effort to meet those. I was hoping we could talk a little about what exactly we should focus on."

Hermione gritted her teeth. "If you can't figure it out on your own, then explaining it to you isn't going to make a bit of difference!"

Sakura's smile didn't even waver. "I understand," she began – which was highly doubtful – "but it is really important that we get this worked out. For Harry's safety."

The longer this conversation carried on, the more Hermione wished she had a convenient excuse to hex her. "Seems Harry is safer away from you."

"Sasuke's actions were unacceptable," Sakura replied, and maybe it did help a little to hear at least one of them plainly state it. Not enough for her to forgive anything, but it did make her feel less inclined to be violent herself.

Unfortunately, Sakura ruined a somewhat good apology by continuing to talk.

"But what matters more is Harry's training. He's far too vulnerable and any advantage we can give him could mean the difference between surviving and not. At the very least, the rest of the team should be able to continue working with him. We'll make sure nothing like that happens again."

The other girl looked so calm and sure of herself. Like this was a simple lesson plan that she had studied inside and out and knew all the answers to. Hermione had felt like that often enough. She made sure of it before she walked into a classroom. But she rarely, if ever, felt that way about anything else in life.

"We've managed just fine before you and we will after as well," Hermione replied as confidently as she could. And maybe she didn't have the same self-assurance that Sakura did but she also knew that anything that came at the cost of Harry letting someone else hurt him wasn't worth it. Hermione could see him on the other side of the room, patiently helping one of the first years through some of the most basic of tasks. He hadn't so much as glanced at any of Team 7 since DA Club had started, but he had argued firmly that they should still be allowed to come. Harry might not be a saint, and there had been plenty of times when she felt like yelling at him herself, but he had a nasty habit of trying to take on everything by himself.

"A man has died," Sakura continued relentlessly. "Do you want Harry to be next?"

"Enough!" Hermione hissed at her, turning suddenly and stepping forward so she could thrust a pointed finger in front of the other girl's face. She wasn't stupid though. She kept her other hand wrapped tightly around her wand at her side. Harry talked about his new friends as if they were more dangerous than Malfoy and Hermione had no illusions about their willingness to hurt someone else if they were willing to hurt Harry. "That's enough," Hermonie told her. "You are not going to stand there and threaten me with Harry's safety. I don't know why you all think you're so much more competent at this than we are, but we've survived more than one threat on Harry's life. And we've done it by watching out for each other. You want to actually help us, then do so! And stop issuing orders or making threats or whining about how we ought to trust you when we've got no good reason to and clear enough evidence to not dare to leave you alone with Harry."

And for once, Sakura looked like she had an actual real emotion on her face. The placating smile fell away, replaced by an ugly little pout that was probably the most honest thing Hermione had seen out of her. "I can't undo what's already been done," she complained.

"No! You can't. And that's the problem, isn't it? Maybe if you'd thought a little bit harder on that then you wouldn't have messed it up to begin with." And maybe for once this point might get through their thick skulls. They could apologize until they were hoarse, but as long as they didn't really understand why they were apologizing, none of it mattered. Hermione huffed and turned away. She'd had enough of this. She had more important things to do than to teach someone basic manners.

Hermione got about three steps away before spinning on one heel and marched back up to whisper harshly one last thing. "Thursday night. After Qudditch practice - because god forbid anyone miss that – all three of us will come to this training of yours."

Sakura opened her mouth to object to that, looking almost stricken by the very suggestion and Hermione wanted to truly yell at her but at least one of them ought to manage to hold her temper and they were still in the middle of a DA club meeting after all. "We don't trust you," Hermione clarified, because honestly the other girl should have been able to figure this out on her own but apparently these nin still thought they could do whatever they wanted and no one was going to rein them in. "And frankly I think you're going to be worthless in a fight against a Death Eater, but we are in fact trying to do everything we can to protect Harry. Even if that means working with people like you. So don't mess it up."